DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum College Football II

Regarding strength of victory: One of the points I've harped on in these threads has been how much strength of victory matters. In other words, beating really good teams boosts a teams resume. Obvious really, but what is probably not as obvious is the large degree it does so.

Does anyone ever wonder why that is? Why shouldn't a 1 loss non-champion automatically be inserted over a 2 loss champion? The winning percentage says the 1 loss team is better and in many sports leagues, that's all you need.

The issue in college football, moreso than professional sports, is greatly different strengths of schedules among teams across different conferences, and even to some extent, within the same conference. As well, teams have latitude over which out of conference games to schedule.

Losses are already built into the system to hurt a lot, no matter what the situation or who you lose to. As long as this is the case-- and I don't expect it to change anytime soon-- then a strong win must carry with it a large gain.

If a loss hurts badly but a strong win doesn't carry much weight, then what would the point of scheduling these strong out of conference games? Maybe Ohio State can go back to beating up Mac teams instead of scheduling a home and home against Oklahoma. Nah.. screw that, nobody wants to see that.

Alabama got unlucky in that the SEC is very strong in the top 3 (Auburn, Alabama, Georgia) but mediocre after that. Well they weren't scheduled against Georgia and they lost to Auburn. Their once-prolific out of conference win was against a Florida State team that now has 6 losses. Quarterback woes or not, the Seminoles are not a good team this year and that win doesn't really help Alabama. Those are the breaks.

I know as recently as a few weeks ago they beat a ranked LSU and a ranked Miss. St in back to back weeks. To open the season they beat a #3 Fla St., thought I agree that hotdog has lost some mustard, but that wasn't known then.

LSU and Miss St are both awful. Who did Miss St just lose to?

I think LSU was ranked due to their history. Miss St was ranked because they were in the SEC. Both teams are bad and FSU is even worse.

LSU will still be seen as a decent win for Alabama. Mississipi State... not really. They're 8-4 now after having lost to Ole Miss.

You can think what you want. I am not saying OSU can't or won't get in. We are simply discussing why and why not some teams can get in. With you OSU fans, you don't discuss the why not's, so this semi Bucks fan is discussing the why not's.

If it makes you feel better, ok, they will get in...as a matter of fact they should probably win it all, so let's just forget playing the games.

There are plenty of why nots from Buckeyes fans. I get it, the committee has never sent a two loss team to the playoffs and 55-24 may well come back to haunt them.

The committee has also never sent a conference non-champion that had less than 3 wins against teams that finished in the top 8 of the final ranking, or two teams from the same conference in the same year, for that matter.

If Ohio State beats Wisconsin, then something has to break this year. I've made a lengthy case of why that should probably be Ohio State. This is all friendly discussion anyway. By all means make a similar case for another team. I really think the only deserving teams are the ACC Champion and SEC Champion for sure, and Oklahoma and Wisconsin if they win.

If one of (or both) Oklahoma and Wisconsin lose, there won't be 4 deserving teams. But the committee has to send 4 anyway.

Folks shouldn't take Wisconsin for granted , tough , well Coached Team .. But a loss to Iowa and the style points lost in the loss make things hard for the comity .. If Ohio won the big ten Championship can you leave them out , even with two loss's ??? Wisconsin could always walk away with the Trophy and make things easy ..lol

Good points, and I agree that Wisconsin should not be taken for granted. I certainly hope the players aren't.

If winning style points count, so should losing style points. The Buckeyes were throttled and completely manhandled late in the season by 8th best team in their conference! The Bucks were healthy and there were no extenuating circumstances. That should eliminate a team on it's own merits. Even my scarlet colored glasses can see that. Throw in the complete destruction at home by the Sooners and there's no way we should be sniffing a playoff spot.

I thought OSU had some injuries along the front 7? I also thought Bosa was ejected early?

-jc-

I think tOSU lost their right to the playoffs once they lost to Iowa giving them two losses.

I hope Georgia wins the SEC title because I also don't think a two loss Auburn team should be in.

If we are going to let two loss teams in the playoffs then we should just hurry up and get to the 8 team playoff and let in the 5 power conference champs plus 3 "wild card" teams.

The whole argument to keep it a 4 team playoff was to let in teams that earned it in the regular season and it also makes the regular season "mean something".

Also, all the arguments that Buckeye fans made last year (myself included) to let the Buckeyes in are the arguments that Alabama has this year.

Just the humble opinion of a huge Buckeye fan.

Big Buckeye fan here. I didn't think we deserved to make the playoffs last year. I felt that it should have been Penn State.

I would love to see a 6 team playoff. The 5 power conference champions, however those conferences choose to pick their champion. Then the next "best" team. Though I am tempted to say the best non power 5 team.

Top 2 teams get a bye

I personally don't like the bye in a college playoff. I'd rather see it go to eight teams and let everyone play equal games.

With eight teams you can play round one, two weeks after the Conference Champion games. Round two you can still play on New Years Day/Eve and that would give the teams two weeks to prepare and then play the National Title game 10-12 days later like they do now.

The reason tOSU had arguments to go last year was because Penn St. beat them on a fluke play, @ Penn St., in a bad weather game. At the time I (and many others) felt if the game was played again tOSU would win. But watching tOSU get embarrassed in the playoffs to Clemsen changed my mind and tOSU should not have been there. But Penn St. had two losses and again, I don't think two loss teams belong on a 4 team playoff when there are unbeaten and 1 loss teams out there.

JMO

Anyone else bothered by these public universities paying out buyouts for fired coaches? Jim Mora's was $12 million and Todd Graham's was $11 million.

Anyway, these coaches are dropping like flies.

I don't love the bye either. Personally I would like the 5 power conference winners, the top group of 5 team then two wild cards. But I don't think that will ever happen. 2 reasons. First, the power 5 conferences are too afraid to let a group of 5 team in. And the power 5 conferences have too much power. Second, the NCAA likes the controversy.

As for tOSU vs PSU last year. PSU won the conference championship proclaiming them the best team in the Big Ten. If tOSU isn't the best team in their conference then they shouldn't have made it into the playoffs over said best team.

an 8 team playoff would be ideal IMO. let the top seed host the game in the first round. if it were to happen, this is what it would look like this year:

1. Clemson
8. Georgia

4. Wisconsin
5. Alabama

2. Oklahoma
7. Miami

3. Auburn
6. Ohio State

Bold: that is simply not true.

Where a team finishes a season is far more relevant in determining the quality of a win than where that team was when the game was played. This is especially true of early season games.

When comparing the merits of a 2 loss champion vs a 1 loss non-champion, the committee has always used other factors to determine who will be ranked higher. Strength of victory has been the precedent in each of these cases as far as I can tell. This has worked against the Buckeyes (in 2015) and then for the Buckeyes (in 2016). How soon we forget.

Last year, the Buckeyes had 3 wins against teams that were in the top 8 of the final playoff ranking. That was the strongest strength of victory, bar none. Alabama isn't even close to that this year. If Ohio State beats Wisconsin, they will finish the season with 2 wins against teams that finish the season in the top 10 of the final ranking (Penn State and Wisconsin), not as good as last year but still much better than what Alabama can claim (if you want to say LSU and Miss. State, I'd counter with Michigan State and Michigan.)

There's the eye test and analtyics stuff as well, which actually do favor Alabama. For example, ESPN's Football Power Index has Alabama rated #1 and Ohio State #2, so that would slightly lean toward 'Bama (the gap was much more significant last year between Ohio State and Penn State, in Ohio State's favor.)

Also last year, Ohio State was actually #3 in the final rankings. Then Washington #4 and Penn State #5. If we make the assumption that every seed matters, then arguably the debate for the last spot was more about Penn State vs Washington than it was Penn State vs Ohio State.

The big problem with expanding the playoff is that it means more wear and tear on the uncompensated players bodies. They get the same scholarship as a team that plays 12 games and loses all of them. You're looking at at least an extra 4 games for a national championship with an expanded field.

make the regular season one less game .. and then add more bowl games for teams at the end of the season ... let teams who are "good" but don't make the final 8 play 2 bowl games

Why not? If that's the only standard, then the optimal solution for a program would be to maneuver one's way into a lower-tier conference, and then only schedule patsies as out of conference games.

Heck, by that standard, let's go ahead and rearrange these seeds.

1. Wisconsin
2. UCF
3. Oklahoma
4. Clemson

... with Memphis knocking on the door.

Coaches poll (not the committee's poll of course, but we'll have to wait a couple more days for that): http://www.espn.com/college-football/rankings

RK TEAM REC PTS TREND
1 Clemson(25) 11-1 1485 2
2 Oklahoma(12) 11-1 1462 3
3 Wisconsin(21) 12-0 1454 1
4 Auburn(4) 10-2 1402 2
5 Alabama 11-1 1272 4
6 Georgia 11-1 1269 1
7 Ohio State 10-2 1123 1
Miami 10-1 1123 5
9 USC 10-2 990 1
10 Penn State 10-2 970 1
11 UCF 11-0 957 1
12 TCU 10-2 934 1

Ohio State and Miami are 7a and 7b. I would have thought Miami would still be ranked better. I'm surprised Alabama dropped to 5, but maybe it shouldn't be such a surprise, due to the quality of wins factor discussed earlier.

You rip Ohio State all the time while crowing about the SEC. That's fine. But, don't get your panties in a wad when I defend Ohio State.

ACC winner, SEC winner are in. Wisconsin and Oklahoma are in if they win.

I didn't think I needed to state that SOS matters. I mean obviously I'm not championing UCF to be in the playoff. In fact I think the non-power 5 should move down a level or make their own level but that is a different discussion.

Right now you have the following teams from a power 5 conference that has 1 loss or less:

Alabama
Miami
Clemson
Oklahoma
Wisconsin
Georgia

If Auburn wins then the Committee will have to put them in. If Clemson and Oklahoma win, who gets #4? A 2 loss Ohio St. or a 1 loss Alabama? I just don't see the committee putting in Ohio St. and the rationale will be Bama lost a game on the road to their biggest rival that would probably be ranked #1/#2 depending on how the championship games play out. Ohio St. lost to a 5 loss Iowa.

But as I stated before, one of the main reasons to keep it a 4 team playoff is to keep the regular season as meaningful. Adding 2-loss teams in the playoffs diminishes that. Losing one game, fine, every team can have a bad day. But losing to Iowa (tOSU) or LSU (Auburn) while also having a top 5 out of conference loss? Sorry, I just dislike it and I would be for expanding to eight teams then.

Let's see where everyone is at after the Conference Championships.

If Clemson, Oklahoma, Wisconsin & Georgia all win then that will be the playoff. If TCU, tOSU & Auburn win??? a 2 Loss team or two will get in and whether or not I personally like it won't matter.

schiano hired, then fired lol

Sure, the strength of schedule matters a lot. That post was somewhat in jest, but even among power 5 teams, strength of schedule can vary immensely depending on what conference a team is in, which division, which cross-division games they play, which out of conference teams they schedule, etc.

This site says that Ohio State played the 3rd toughest schedule although Alabama is actually #7, up from #22 after the Auburn game. I'm surprised that the schedule had turned out to be that strong. https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/ranking/schedule-strength-by-other

I agree about the Auburn getting in as the SEC champ. If they finish the trifecta, their late season strength of victory would be preposterous, and that is a 2 loss team that I said all along would be more deserving of a spot in the playoffs than a potential 2 loss Ohio state.

I also think the #4 spot in the scenario you describe would be easily the toughest decision the committee will have to make in the now 4th year of the playoff format.

We already know Ohio State's negatives-- they were beaten soundly by Oklahoma, and got destroyed by Iowa. People ask how they could possibly get in-- well, they played the 3rd toughest schedule. They ran up some huge wins along the way themselves. They'd have wins over a pair of teams that finish in the top 10 of the playoff rankings on top of another couple decent ones vs Michigan State and Michigan, and the prestigious Big Ten championship.

What can you say about Alabama? Why should a team that doesn't even play for its own conference championship, whose best win was a win at home against the #17 team in the country, get in because they only have 1 loss? The only top team they played on their schedule was Auburn, and Alabama lost by multiple scores. What exactly is it they've done that makes them so deserving? If they had beaten a bunch of top 10 teams I would understand, but I think we're just going more on eye test and Alabama's legitimate multi-year run of excellence. I don't think that will be quite enough to get it done.

Just crazy.... the fans spoke and admins listened...

pretty wild

The committee was created to find the best 4 teams.

Tennessee fans used very flimsy accusations against Schiano as an excuse to get him "fired." The whole was scary and was the internet at its worst.

We live in a world where accusations are often treated as facts.

Some accusations are true. Some aren't. The ones that aren't can be because the accuser is mistaken, lying, out for personal gain, or it can even be part of a coordinated hit job.

This is the kind of thing that has often been part of the political domain. To see it unfold in college football is scary.

This one wasn't even an accusation. It was hearsay from a court document involving a second-hand conversation from 25 years ago. The world has gone mad.

Realistically, it's a combination of finding the best and most accomplished teams.

One issue with finding the truly best teams is that it would de-emphasize wins and losses in a way that would go against the spirit of sports and competition.

Say there's a close one score game, that is decided by a fluke play, an inch of measurement, or a bad call by the referee. Sports as we perceive them is very much a 'winner take all' thing-- you either win or you lose.

However, if you're projecting which teams are best-- as in, who is likely to be the strongest team and perform best in the future-- such a close game is basically split right down the middle. Half a win for one team, half a win for another. In practice, it would favor the road team slightly regardless of the actual winner.

That's not something I'm really interested in, nor do I think many sports fans are either.

When Alabama gets in over Ohio State, I just hope SEC fans remember this moment years from now, when someone from another conference with 1-loss gets into the playoff over an SEC team with 2 losses that played a tougher schedule.

SEC fans throw the schedule card at fans from other conferences all the time, but boy they are't listening to that argument right now, lol.

And lulz @ Clay Travis trying to make the argument that this year's Alabama is the same as last year's Ohio State. I mean yeah, if you take away the 3 top-7 wins Ohio State had.

the problem is that O state got in, and then showed the world why they had no business being in the playoffs last year.

alabama isn't gonna get shut out in the playoffs.

Obviously, they were horrible in the playoff, but hindsight is a nice thing.

Going into the playoff, the Buckeyes literally beat 3 top-7 teams. The committee felt they were so good, that they picked them over a team that not only beat them during the year, but also won their conference.

I agree with you though, I don't think they are going to leave out Alabama. But I do think they got exposed, and their offense can really struggle if asked to score quite a bit in a big game.

They're flawed, but so is everyone else. There is no team that stands above everyone else this year if you ask me. Clemson has a loss and at times has looked average, Wisconsin is unblemished but has not really had to play anyone. Oklahoma, if you ask me, is probably the best team in the country right now, and even they had a let down. Auburn has 2 losses. Ohio State got pummeled at Iowa. Georgia got beat down a few weeks ago. Miami has looked lost since beating Notre Dame.

It's just one of those years where anyone who makes the playoff has a really good shot.

Look at the Top 10 and then imagine if we had an 8-team playoff. Do you really want 8 of them in a playoff? And wouldn't the last few weeks of the season lose a lot of importance if a conference title game became just a seeding outcome? Heck, Alabama would be in with no drama, and they would have known that when they entered the Iron Bowl.

Yeah, you'd water down the last 2 weekends of the regular season which are so much fun. You'd have teams possibly sitting starters in rivalry games.

I think 4 is perfect.

They've been "Haslamed"..

jc

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but 538 has an interactive model where you can play around with various scenarios and it shows the percentage chance of making the playoffs: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2017-college-football-predictions/

ESPN used it to demonstrate various scenarios on one of its shows, so depending on how you feel about that network, that may add or detract from the model's usefulness.

I do think the model is a bit rough around the edges; I've played around with it here and there and it becomes clear that there are some factors that are not taken into account and a team's probability could go one way when you'd expect it to go another. Overall though it seems reasonable

It's crazy how those percentages aren't set in stone. Clemson winning in some situations helps OSU, and in others can hurt their chances.

Looks like OSU's best percentage is 82%, and lowest is 47%.